World Food Day, Everyday!

Today is World Food Day, a global movement to end hunger. In many cities including Boston, Oxfam will host a dinner to “foster a conversation about where our food comes from, who cultivates it, and how we can take personal actions that will help protect farmers and farmland around the world”.

Many people think hunger is an end product of ‘too many people, not enough food’. That is not the case. We produce enough food to feed every woman, man, and child on Earth. Hunger today is about power, and control of the food system.

Our eating habits have been manipulated by mass media marketing, lobbying, public relations, political maneuvering, and ‘food pyramids’, which benefit big agriculture companies, not our health. We are hoarding food for profit while eating ourselves into unhappiness.

As consumer’s we have enormous power to change the food system. By choosing to eat more local, organic, and non-GMO food, we support our own economies and our local farmers and merchants. This keeps our money local as well, and not sent off to the coffers of the chain super store. Do you really work hard all week to give your $ to Walmart?

In Brazil and Cambodia, Oxfam found that companies that supply sugar to Coke and Pepsi have robbed farmers of their rights and kicked them off their land. ABF – the biggest sugar producer in Africa – is reported as linked to a range of other unresolved land disputes. Whole communities have lost their main source of food and income. All so we can have a soft drink?

Just the simple act of giving up soda (especially diet!), can help the global movement to end hunger. Yep, that easy.

Eat more actual food, not processed items that are edible (or not), and know where it comes from. Eating is the one thing you will do 3x a day (at least), for the rest of your life. There is power in that! A chance to vote for, and support, a system that includes you and treats you fairly. That’s real voting power, and it can’t be shut down!

The way you engage with your food will not only be healthier for you, but better for everyone everywhere. Maybe we can ‘save the world’ after all. We just need to start. Buy something local/organic/non-GMO today!